Huge colourful fashion drawings laying around on big white tables in the best design studios with your initials in the corner. Who did not have this thought flashing by while starting up on their next masterpiece? Great looking works definitely enhance portfolio of any artist and gets the focus on the main part, the idea. The path to get there is simple — practice. Here are some suggestions on how to get to that next level.

Pose. Make sure, that pose of the model you draw reflects the mood of the garment, or a subject of the drawing if it is fashion illustration. For example, intricate and exaggerated poses rarely appropriate for demonstrating an office wear. But they are a must with evening or club wear. Poses that are too static or generic make ideas look ordinary.

Hands. This is always a tough part. I myself spent hours mastering hands drawing but still not satisfied with the result. It takes a lot of practice to get better. Correctly drawn hands make drawing look much more professional, help to express mood and enhance perception.

Thankfully for me and anyone out there looking to improve there is a wonderful tutorial by Mike Koizumi. It is a step by step explanation of how to draw hand from different points of view. Moreover, it provides a nice tip on how to draw a hand from every imaginable angle.

For more in-depth knowledge of hand’s anatomy, the ways they can help to express the mood, emotions and meaning of fashion illustration or fashion collection I suggest to read the classic book Drawing Dynamic Hands by Burne Hogarth. This is the most comprehensive book ever published on drawing hands, definitely must read!

Face. Our brain is trained by evolution to recognize faces. We pay huge attention to facial expressions and features. So just a hint of eyes, nose and mouth could make your drawing more live and pleasant to look at.
Check this post by concept artist Xia Taptara for really good examples on how to draw female faces. It starts from basics, so it is easy to follow.

Style. It is what makes your drawing unique and it takes time to find it. Some authors recommend to begin drawing with classical 8-heads figures. Others suggest that copying different styles may help to find your own. I am sure that both paths will certainly lead to improvement of drawing skills and will help to find the best way to express your ideas. Get the basics right and then start experimenting.
Here is a fantastic video from Sycra Yasin showing on example that with persistence and a bit of a talent you can chose to draw in a style you like (or few of them):

Background. It is surprising how just a few strokes outlining a ground or a shadow could add volume to a figure and separate it from the background. Try it and see yourself.

Gym and museum. Interesting pair, but no kidding. Going to the gym will enhance your anatomy knowledge. Working on your body will give you the notion of muscles layout and body movement range to draw figures correctly. And in any case you will still have nice side effects – improved fitness and more positive energy so needed for any artist. As for museums, the more you explore other artists’ ideas and works the more inspiration and food for thought you would have in your own attempts. Classic, contemporary, street art — all adds up to your style.

Whether you are a student applying for a fashion course, an aspiring post-graduate hoping to get employment, or an established professional seeking for new carrier opportunities you know that the quality portfolio is essential to work your way up as a fashion designer.
There is a book that will help you with just that: to create an impressive fashion portfolio – Fashion Portfolio: Design & Presentation by Anna Kiper.

About the book

Fashion Portfolio: Design & Presentation is a large format book that takes the reader through the complete process of creating a fashion portfolio from concept to presentation.
The book is written in clear and explicit language lavishly complemented by beautiful photographs and illustrations.

The structure guides the reader through all the major steps of fashion portfolio creation. It delves into the fundamentals of each of subjects and touches almost all aspects of design. This is a kind of book that shows the reader ways to think, how to develop a collection and how to create a portfolio.

Through the pages Anna Kiper helps the reader to build a vision of the design process. She gives the necessary creative framework, highlights hidden reefs and offers valuable advice on how to organize and control creative process, making your efforts effective.
The book explains the process of creating collection in a contextual manner, calling for consistent and logical approach entangled with certain idea, mood and theme.

It gives the reader a glimpse into designer’s mind, demonstrating the way ideas revolve and are coming together into collages, mood boards, sketches, garments and, finally, into a complete collection.

But the greatest thing is that Fashion Portfolio doesn’t set anything as right or wrong, it leaves all doors open for you showing that inspiration could be found in very unusual places. It induces to ideas, not sets the path.Continue reading »

Australians love to shop and market responds accordingly bursting with great variety of brands and labels to satisfy every demand.

As I have mentioned before many fashion brands are part of a bigger groups and holdings. With generous investments and high-class management often provided by big companies it is easier for small brands to survive market competition and improve overall performance.

Australia is no exception from this rule. If we have a closer look on fashion market we will notice that numerous brands are operated by a handful of companies. 34 of the most popular Australian fashion brands are owned or controlled by only 8 companies.

The question who owns whom is quite popular and the answer to it costs a lot[1].

Want to know who owns Millers fashion or Autograph brand? Have a look on the table below and you will find that these brands along with city chic, crossroads, Katies and iconic Australian brand Rivers belong to the largest retailer of women’s fashion in Australia – Specialty Fashion Group.

Other popular fast-fashion clothing retail chain Cotton On operates Cotton On Body, Cotton On Kids, Rubi Shoes, T-bar and Factorie and has Supre brand as its subsidiary.

Such middle market clothing and accessories brands as Mimco, Trenery and Witchery are part of Country Road Group.

Dion Lee label is acquired by The Cue Clothing Co., though it remains independent from Cue and Veronika Maine.

South African company Woolworths Holdings Limited is the ultimate parent entity of Country Road Group and owns 88% of its shares.

↑The American Business Information Company Dun and Bradstreet in associations with GAP Books publish annual directories in which provided the relationship between companies worldwide showing who is the ultimate parent company and who are their subsidiaries. Each compendium sells for more than £ 600 pounds and gives excessive information about global market.

While looking for a way to organize and logically structure my own wardrobe I came across different approaches. It was quite a mix from colour priority method where all your items are put in a line of rainbow colours (or Pantone palette) to “grab and go” style where items hanged together formed a ready to wear outfit.

The problem is neither of these methods is optimized for viewing. To put an outfit together you need to pull everything out in order to see what you have, that takes too much time sometimes.

For me organized wardrobe is not only of a tidy appearance, but also allows to create looks easy and fast, to keep track of items I have, and to see if my new purchase will match any of it.

The solution comes from Google play – the wardrobe organizer apps.

I really like the concept of having the entire wardrobe on a palm of my hand. I downloaded and tried most of closet sorting apps. Here is my pick of the best 5.

I know it can be very frustrating to have a fantastic idea and not be able to put it on a paper equally brilliant.
In this post I suggest some good fashion illustration books that will help to put your idea where you thoughts are.

Fashion Illustration Techniques: A Super Reference Book for Beginners by Zeshu Takamura

If you need fast results and have no time to comprehend body anatomy in details go for Fashion Illustration Techniques: A Super Reference Book for Beginners by Zeshu Takamura. With a bit of practice you will be able to draw a decent fashion figure in a week.
In this book Zeshu Takamura introduces original figure drawing technique which is considerably different from the European art traditions. There is no complicated anatomy, just step by step guide: easy to follow and to produce invariably good results.

Apart from featuring sufficiently great amount of model poses the book also covers almost all subjects an amateur fashion artist or designer will need. It includes textile rendering techniques, chapters of depicting fashion flats (technical drawings) and clothing, explicit “drawing from the photo” tutorials as well as loads of tips and tricks to give a sketch more professional look.

This brilliantly illustrated compendium hits broad range of topics from drawing a croquis to developing a collection. It describes how to gather and organize sources of inspiration, to alter a portfolio and illustrations to industry standards, or to perform market research and meet the expectations of target group and much more. Though some subjects are covered in brief with not many details I still recommend this book for a number of good reasons.

1. Media

The reason number 1 is the chapter “Selection and use of materials”. This section is a great time-saver as it contains many helpful tips of applying various paints and brushes on a myriad types of paper (I don’t even think that there are so many of them!). Also it explains clearly which medium to choose for desired result. Whether we’d like to resemble a printed illustration with clean outlines and opaque colours or wish a gentle transparent look for the drawing.

2. Folds and drapes

This book is one of the few that pays great attention to depicting dressed figure. In the way many authors study the construction of human body, Angel Fernandez and Gabriel Martin Roig, on other hand, examine the anatomy of folds and drapes, as well as difference between drawing bias and grain cut. These explanations are priceless!

3. Stylization

Distinctive style, author’s manner is the main difference between professional illustrator and inexperienced one. However, not many books include a guide on how to develop it. Drawing for Fashion Designers reveals main principles that can help to develop unique style and express the design idea in full.

At a glance

Body measurement system

8, 9, 10 heads

Illustrating men

Illustrating children

Colouring and fabric rendering techniques

Exploring media

Drawing fashion flats (technical drawings)

Figure stylization

Drawing from a photograph

Drawing accessories

Fashion illustration. Inspiration and Technique by Anna Kiper

I absolutely love this book! This book is brilliant. It does not have comprehensive point by point tutorials, you will not find much about the anatomy or about the use of painting materials, but it is good!

Filled with colourful and vivid drawings the book unfolds the subject of fashion illustration in exiting and artsy way.

I recommend it for everyone who enjoys drawing fashion illustrations. You will have fun, and even more if you have prior experience in drawing.

If I may draw a parallel between fashion illustration and cook books I’d say that while Zeshu Takamura’s Fashion design Techniques is like step by step recipe book, Anna Kiper’s Fashion Illustration is more like compendium of colourful food photography and decorating table ideas. Being very laconic it features abundance of stunning illustrations, so it really doesn’t matter that there are so little words, it leaves more space for designs.

This is surely a kind of book you would want to go through few times scrutinizing details and apprehending the way drawings were made.

The book focuses on the traditional drawing topics from the figure basics to drawing flats.

Carol A. Nunnelly deploys a great variety of poses and positioning within her book. She also introduces the body mapping concept of drawing garments on figure which I found extremely helpful.
However, the book could be much better if the chapter of texture rendering were a bit more carefully arranged. Now it looks oversimplified.

If Fashion Design Techniques by Zeshu Takamura is a step by step recipe book, Anna Kiper’s Fashion illustration. Inspiration and Technique is an inspiration book, Figure Drawing for Fashion Design is definitely a reference book.

It can be very helpful both for novice and seasoned illustrators, and all of those in between.

This comprehensive course on drawing fashion figures lays good foundation to work with and provides the most sufficient way to draw a large variety of fashion elements: from any part of the human’s body to clothing and accessories. It is really helpful as reference while depicting various poses and body movements.

Though teaching the basics is accompanied with extensive detailing which may seems to be superfluous for ordinary fashion sketch, I’m sure extra knowledge won’t hurt. At least you would know where to find it where you need it later on.

I have the first edition of the book dated 2001. Some reviews complain it was systematized and lacks clearness jumping from one subject to another. Apparently, this was one of the reasons for the second version to see shop shelves in 2010. Now it is believed to be greatly expanded and updated. Also it seems to be more structured and logical then first one. I think there is nothing wrong with older version if that’s what you can get.

The title reflects it all. There are 250 royalty free templates featuring different poses in the book as well as some basic information on the subject of drawing. All poses are duplicated on CD as .tif and .jpeg images.

Free Fashion Figure Templates from Purfe

While reading these books and trying different techniques I made some croquis of 9 head models.

They are free to download and can be used for individual purposes or as reference to your own illustrations (Attribution-NonCommercial License). Looking forward to see your designs!